A while back someone asked a forum question about what everyone does with their scrap wood and cutoffs. The overwhelming response was for inlay pieces, or firewood. I also do the same thing, but last fall I gathered up some scrap and made up bookmarks for gifts at Christmas. While doing this I sort of got carried away with it.
Making bookmarks are like making cutting boards. It’s not difficult and its fun experimenting with different designs and wood types. With glued up blocks, it’s ...

Well, a few nights ago I stayed up until well after midnight to finish the rough in wiring and insulating of my shop. I was tired, but I went to bed with a great feeling of accomplishment. I’ve done everything myself so far, and as a female, and one that’s only 5 feet tall, I’m just pretty darned proud of myself. I knew nothing about wiring, but now that I’m done with it, I feel like I might even tackle a few of our simple in home wiring projects.
I want to thank al...

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” Zig Ziglar (1926 – )...Motivational author and speaker Miraculous Staircase of Santa Fe NMThe Miraculous Staircase of the Loretto Chapel located in Santa Fe New Mexico is an amazing piece of carpentry and woodworking. If this work of art were built today, the reaction of people would be the same as it was when this set of stairs was completed...

In a recent tool gloat, dakremer showed off three lovely braces he’d purchased and said “Now I just have to learn how to restore this kind of thing”. WayneC was first to congratulate him and then proceeded to drop me in it (only joking) by saying “Brit has lots of experience in restoring braces”. Later in the comments dakremer said he would love to restore at least one of them to like new condition. Always a sucker for punishment, I agreed to do a blog on restoring a hand brace and I’ve...

After sanding the boards to 320 grit on the Random Orbital Sander, I used 1200 grit to burnish the tops only… then it was just a matter of rubbing heaps of Mineral Oil [liquid Paraffin oil] into the boards…and buffing off the excess… this procedure will be repeated every 24 hours..once I get back from Adelaide…And then just one more finishing touch… next week…

I glued up a cutting board with a table saw that was not properly aligned. As a result I had a glue up that was relatively flat on one side but way out of whack on the other side.
The flat side was a huge pain to flatten with my little Ryobi belt sander even with 40 Grit belts. The rough side needed about 1/8” of wood that needed to be removed over most of the board. This is no joke with hard maple. It would have taken hours.
My lumber dealer referred me to a cabinet shop that...

Recently, I thought I would try to get my nephew, 9, away from his video games, so I proposed that we build a potato cannon together. Grandpa was not very keen on the idea of us firing it handheld, so in order to placate him I agreed to mount it on a carriage.
I chose the 105mm Howitzer as a model. This is pretty typical as light artillery pieces go, I think.
I scaled various relative dimensions from pictures, and once we got our cannon built, used those relative dimensions to size the...

It’s been a busy month for other things, but I’ve made some good progress on the boat. I’ve also managed to find some great planking lumber, with a great story behind it, which I’ll write about a bit below.
But first, update on the transom which now completes the stern.
The transom is attached to sternpost with 5 countersunk #10 bronze screws which are covered with matching cherry plugs. Later on, I’ll epoxy in and cut the plugs off flush.
And a ...